Former Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum's next act? Sports agent

When Steve Kerr signed a contract with the Warriors worth $25 million, there was another curious newsworthy name next to his on the news stories: Mike Tannenbaum, the former Jets general manager who was relieved of his duties after the 2012 season.

Since leaving the Jets, Tannenbaum has signed on as an agent at Priority Sports and Entertainment, a group based out of Chicago and Los Angeles where instead of being on the team side of contracts, he’s helping negotiate contracts for coaching and broadcast personalities.

It’s been a bit of an adjustment from the other side of the business he said — but not all bad.

“It takes awhile for sure. It’s similar but different. We all have to make a living and certainly I do as well,” he told For The Win this week. “With that being said, I think the people that are the best plumbers in the country love being a plumber and the best stock traders love being stock traders. You have to have passion to have success and for me the passion comes from working with people and not just helping them get jobs with more money but to really immediately help them.”

At Priority, Tannenbaum is in charge of a new division representing broadcast personalities — an increasingly lucrative and competitive business. Kerr came to him a year ago, he said.

“In the first thirty seconds [of meeting him] he said look ‘I’m going to coach one day and you’re going to get me there,'” he said.

While Tannenbaum may have been on the NFL side of the business, he could help Kerr prepare for interviews and through the process — even though it’s a different sport. Kerr put together a 40-page plan that he constantly updated and tweaked. And the two would often swap articles and dissect what they thought an organization or coach could have done differently or better.

Finally a few months ago, Kerr’s name surfaced for the Knicks job (though it wasn’t open yet.) Then came the Warriors. And in the end, he chose to go to the West Coast. It was a remarkable turnaround for Kerr, who had been a longtime analyst for TNT. In the process of a year he went from being a well-liked announcer to one of the top coaching candidates with two options available.

It was also a push back into the spotlight for his new agent, who had last been seen taking the fall for a drama-filled year in the Jets.

“My job was really just to play devil’s advocate and just make sure he understood the pros and cons of every decision he made,” Tannenbaum said. “Steve’s a very thoughtful, methodical guy. He has countless resources of people in the league he can talk to so depending on the conversation he had to get stuff off his chest or it was ‘no this is what we need to do and let’s go.'”

Tannenbaum said he is enjoying the work on the other side of the negotiating table. But he does keep in touch with many people from the NFL and hasn’t ruled out switching back to the other side at some point.

“I had been in the NFL for so long and I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur so this is great,” he said. “In terms of my future I would never rule things out. Being part of a team is tremendous. You know where everyone is walking into the building working for a common goal so in terms of my future I would never rule anything out.

At least for now though, sports agent is a fine job.

“I think if you look at my frequent flier miles over the last few months,” he said, “I think you can see what a commitment I put into this.”

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